Snowfall at Willow Lake: Lakeshore Chronicles Book 4 by Susan Wiggs Read Free Book Online Page A

mission. “First of all, you could clarify the trial was through the International Criminal Court, which was created only six years ago, so it’s not some venerable, old institution. And honestly, the only reason I served as a prosecutor is that the lead counsel and his deputy got sick right before the first hearing.” Willem De Groot was an older man who shared her passion for a just cause. Hooked up to a dialysis machine, he had guided her and his staff through the case, week after week.
    â€œSo it was a matter of luck meeting opportunity,” Brooks said.
    â€œBad luck meeting necessity,” she clarified. “I’d give anything if he could be here tonight.”
    â€œYou really don’t want to be the star of this, do you? What a waste of looks and talent.”
    â€œYou seem preoccupied with my looks.”
    â€œIt’s the dress. You had to have known it would affect men this way, even without jewelry. I assume you’re making a statement.”
    â€œI’m opposed to diamonds for obvious reasons. And so many other stones are questionable that it’s simpler to wear none. But pearls! They’re produced by oysters and hunted by happy divers, right? I should take to wearing pearls.”
    â€œYou could wear pearls in the video,” he said.
    Sophie was about two sips of champagne away from ditching this guy. “You’re obnoxious, Mr. Fordham. And I’m leaving. Everything is about to start.”
    â€œOne final question and I’ll leave you alone,” he added.
    â€œGo ahead.”
    â€œWill you let me take you to dinner tomorrow night?”
    â€œThat doesn’t sound like leaving me alone.”
    â€œBut does it sound…like a plan?”
    She hesitated. He probably had a degree from an Ivy League school, a pedigree back to the Mayflower and a brazen sense of entitlement. Still, going to dinner with him meant not eating alone. “I’ll have my assistant call you to arrange things.”
    â€œIt’s a dinner date, not an international summit.”
    â€œMy assistants are excellent at arranging things,” she assured him. A date with this man might be a diversion. Her romantic past was…undistinguished. Perhaps that was the word for it. Forgettable teenage gropings in high school had given way to slightly more sophisticated dating in college—frat parties and raves. And then there was Greg. They’d married before they even knew who they were. It was like grafting together two incompatible trees—tolerable at first but eventually the differences could not be ignored. Had she loved him? Everyone loved Greg. He was the adorable, charming, indulged youngest of the four Bellamy siblings. How could anyone not love him? This sense that she should love him had sustained the marriage over sixteen years, long enough for her to be absolutely certain the love was gone. Afterward she had walked around shell-shocked for several months.
    Only last fall had she dared to stick her toe into the dating pool. The first time a man had asked her out, she had regarded him as if he’d spoken in a dead language. Go out? On a date? What a novel idea.
    Thus began the dating phase, which was infinitely preferable to the postdivorce shell-shocked phase. Her first prospect was a diplomatic protection agent who was more interested in showing off his 007 trappings—an alert device hidden in his lapel, a cigarette pack that could dispense cyanide gas—than in discovering who Sophie actually was. Despite her disenchantment, she’d tried to move seamlessly into the sleeping-around phase during which a newly divorced woman indulged her every fantasy. Women who slept around always seemed as though they were having such fun. Yet Sophie found it disappointing and stressful and quickly retreated to the benign safety of casual dating. She told herself she would stay open to the possibility that one day one of the attachés or